KEEPING THE PEACE Of course, even if it is true that the costs of deep engagement fall far below what advocates of
retrenchment claim, they would not be worth bearing unless they yielded greater benefits. In fact, they do. The
dangerous rivalries from erupting. They maintain that the high costs of territorial conquest and the many tools
countries can use to signal their benign intentions are enough to prevent conflict. In other words, major powers
Taiwan tried to obtain nuclear weapons; the only thing that stopped them was the United States, which used its
argument: that such rivalries wouldn't actually hurt the United States. To be sure, few doubt that the United States
Were states in
one or both of these regions to start competing against one another, they would
likely boost their military budgets, arm client states, and perhaps even start
regional proxy wars, all of which should concern the United States, in part because its
lead in military capabilities would narrow . Greater regional insecurity could also
produce cascades of nuclear proliferation as powers such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea,
and Taiwan built nuclear forces of their own. Those countries' regional competitors might then also
seek nuclear arsenals. Although nuclear deterrence can promote stability between two states with the kinds
of nuclear forces that the Soviet Union and the United States possessed, things get shakier when there
are multiple nuclear rivals with less robust arsenals . As the number of nuclear
powers increases, the probability of illicit transfers, irrational decisions, accidents,
and unforeseen crises goes up. The case for abandoning the United States' global role misses the
underlying security logic of the current approach. By reassuring allies and actively managing
regional relations, Washington dampens competition in the world's key areas, thereby
preventing the emergence of a hothouse in which countries would grow new
military capabilities. For proof that this strategy is working, one need look no further than the defense
could survive the return of conflict among powers in Asia or the Middle East -- but at what cost?
budgets of the current great powers: on average, since 1991 they have kept their military expenditures as a
percentage of GDP to historic lows, and they have not attempted to match the United States' top-end military
capabilities. Moreover, all of the world's most modern militaries are U.S. allies, and the United States' military lead
over its potential rivals is by many measures growing. On top of all this, the current grand strategy acts as a hedge
against the emergence regional hegemons. Some supporters of retrenchment argue that the U.S. military should
keep its forces over the horizon and pass the buck to local powers to do the dangerous work of counterbalancing
rising regional powers. Washington, they contend, should deploy forces abroad only when a truly credible contender
for regional hegemony arises, as in the cases of Germany and Japan during World War II and the Soviet Union during
there is already a potential contender for regional hegemony -- China -and to balance it, the United States will need to maintain its key alliances in Asia and
the military capacity to intervene there. The implication is that the United States should get out of
the Cold War. Yet
Afghanistan and Iraq, reduce its military presence in Europe, and pivot to Asia. Yet that is exactly what the Obama
critics
miss one of its most important benefits: sustaining an open global
economy and a favorable place for the United States within it. To be sure, the sheer size of its
administration is doing. MILITARY DOMINANCE, ECONOMIC PREEMINENCE Preoccupied with security issues,
of the current grand strategy
output would guarantee the United States a major role in the global economy whatever grand strategy it adopted.
economic interests. During the Cold War, Washington used its overseas security commitments to get allies to
embrace the economic policies it preferred -- convincing West Germany in the 1960s, for example, to take costly
steps to support the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. U.S. defense agreements work the same way today. For
example, when negotiating the 2011 free-trade agreement with South Korea, U.S. officials took advantage of
Seoul's desire to use the agreement as a means of tightening its security relations with Washington. As one
diplomat explained to us privately, "We asked for changes in labor and environment clauses, in auto clauses, and
the Koreans took it all." Why? Because they feared a failed agreement would be "a setback to the political and
economic order is more of the same: for instance, it likes the current structure of the World Trade Organization and
the International Monetary Fund and prefers that free trade continue. Washington wins when U.S. allies favor this
status quo, and one reason they are inclined to support the existing system is because they value their military
alliances. Japan, to name one example, has shown interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Obama
administration's most important free-trade initiative in the region, less because its economic interests compel it to
do so than because Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda believes that his support will strengthen Japan's security ties with
the United States.
The United States' geopolitical dominance also helps keep the U.S.
dollar in place as the world's reserve currency, which confers enormous benefits on
the country, such as a greater ability to borrow money. This is perhaps clearest with Europe:
the EU's dependence on the United States for its security precludes the EU from having the kind of political
come by in regions where chaos reigns, and it flourishes where leaders can anticipate lasting stability. U.S. alliances
are about security first, but they also provide the political framework and channels of communication for
cooperation on nonmilitary issues. NATO, for example, has spawned new institutions, such as the Atlantic Council, a
think tank, that make it easier for Americans and Europeans to talk to one another and do business. Likewise,
consultations with allies in East Asia spill over into other policy issues; for example, when American diplomats travel
network within NATO, which was originally designed to gather information on the Soviet Union, has been adapted to
deal with terrorism. Similarly, after a tsunami in the Indian Ocean devastated surrounding countries in 2004,
Washington had a much easier time orchestrating a fast humanitarian response with Australia, India, and Japan,
since their militaries were already comfortable working with one another. The operation did wonders for the United
States' image in the region. The United States' global role also has the more direct effect of facilitating the bargains
among governments that get cooperation going in the first place. As the scholar Joseph Nye has written, "The
American military role in deterring threats to allies, or of assuring access to a crucial resource such as oil in the
Persian Gulf, means that the provision of protective force can be used in bargaining situations. Sometimes the
linkage may be direct; more often it is a factor not mentioned openly but present in the back of statesmen's minds."
THE DEVIL WE KNOW Should America come home? For many prominent scholars of international relations, the
answer is yes -- a view that seems even wiser in the wake of the disaster in Iraq and the Great Recession. Yet their
There is little evidence that the United States would save much
money switching to a smaller global posture. Nor is the current strategy self-defeating: it has
not provoked the formation of counterbalancing coalitions or caused the country to
spend itself into economic decline. Nor will it condemn the United States to
foolhardy wars in the future. What the strategy does do is help prevent the outbreak of conflict in the
arguments simply don't hold up.
world's most important regions, keep the global economy humming, and make international cooperation easier.
Charting a different course would threaten all these benefits. This is not to say that the United States' current
foreign policy can't be adapted to new circumstances and challenges. Washington does not need to retain every
commitment at all costs, and there is nothing wrong with rejiggering its strategy in response to new opportunities or
setbacks. That is what the Nixon administration did by winding down the Vietnam War and increasing the United
States' reliance on regional partners to contain Soviet power, and it is what the Obama administration has been
doing after the Iraq war by pivoting to Asia. These episodes of rebalancing belie the argument that a powerful and
internationally engaged America cannot tailor its policies to a changing world .
A grand strategy of
actively managing global security and promoting the liberal economic order has
served the United States exceptionally well for the past six decades, and there is no reason to
give it up now. The country's globe-spanning posture is the devil we know, and a
world with a disengaged America is the devil we don't know . Were American leaders
to choose retrenchment, they would in essence be running a massive experiment to test how the world
would work without an engaged and liberal leading power. The results could well be disastrous.
VS Maggie
The withdraw of Us heg would trigger massive collapse of
global cooperation like the ability to secure economies and
naval superiority that higly effects solution to pandemic,
climate change. It also creates a power vacumm that would
trigger massive instability